Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives

Chastity

Sex Stimuli and Christian Chastity

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Our subject for this evening's conference is Sex Stimuli
and Christian Chastity. A subtitle for this conference could be: Sex Stimuli
and Christian Sanctity. Everything in our lives is intended by God to draw
us closer to Him in this world and bring us to the possession of Him in a heavenly
eternity. Sex stimuli are a part of Divine Providence. Provided they are used
according to the will of God, they are not only the occasion for the practice
of moral chastity. They can be the means of reaching the highest sanctity.

I would like to begin this conference with a story. It
was June 20th, 1950, when I had the privilege of working with the Vatican radio
in Rome on the day when Pope Pius XII canonized St. Maria Goretti. Some 800,000
people came to Rome for the canonization. They not only filled St. Peter's
Square but the crowd stretched out beyond the square up to the Tiber as far
as the eye could reach. After the formal canonization was finished, the Holy
Father gave a homily that I shall never forget. He told the assembled multitude
and millions of others who were listening on the radio how Maria Goretti was
not only a martyr of chastity but a model of sanctity.

He told us that the next half of the twentieth century would
be the greatest test in the history of Christianity. He said the enemies of
the Church will promote sex stimulation in order to undermine the Christian
faith of whole nations. He also said that the only followers of Christ who
would survive the sex revolution would be living martyrs who were witnesses
to Christ's teaching on chastity.

These words of Pope Pius XII were prophetic. Never in the
history of the Church have the enemies of Christianity been more successful
in using sex stimulation to undermine the Christian faith. The modern media
of communication have become the modern media of sex stimulation beyond anything
known in human history. We who have the true faith are called upon to witness
to this faith, as the pope predicted, even to dying a martyr's death, but certainly
to living a martyr's life.

There will be three main parts to this evening's conference.
First we shall see something of the Church's teaching on the morality of sex
stimuli. Then we shall answer the hard question of how we are to cope with
these stimuli in order to preserve our virtue of chastity. Finally, we will
consider what must seem like a contradiction, namely sex stimulation and Christian
sanctification.

The Morality of Sex Stimuli

I think the best way of coping with this immense subject
is by asking a series of questions and providing a brief but pointed answer.
So we begin with our first question, "Is sexual self-control easy?"
No, as the experience of human history shows, mastery of the sex passions is
not easy. Even to call them passions is already to recognize how demanding
they can be. "Why are these passions so strong?" They are so strong
because the need for reproducing and teaching children is so extremely important,
and because we have a fallen human nature. On the first level, God provides
a strong inclination in men and women to live up to His commandment, "Increase
and multiply and fill the earth." On the second level, God withdrew the
built-in mastery of our desires that our first parents lost for themselves and
their posterity.

"What, then, is sexual concupiscence?" The language
may seem strange, but the ideas behind the language are crucial. Sexual concupiscence
is one of the seven naturally uncontrolled desires that all human beings have
because of their fallen nature. It is called lust and is regularly placed next
after the sinful drive to pride. In the mind of the Church, these two, pride
and lust, are the primary impulses that cannot be controlled by the human will
alone. They require divine grace to master. But once mastered, they are also
the foundation stones of sanctity. Humility and chastity are the bedrock of
Christian holiness.

"What are these sex stimuli?" There is no limit
to the number and variety of these stimuli. They differ with different people
and with the same people at different times. Certain kind of stimuli are inevitable
for any normal man or woman.

"Can a person's physical or psychological disposition
be conducive to sexual arousal?" Yes, fatigue and emotional stress, disappointment
or humiliation, time of the day or night are all contributing factors. There
is also a correlation between arousal and the activity of the bodily glands,
and especially stronger venereal desires when the body is physiologically prepared
for fertile intercourse around the time of ovulation for women and accumulation
of semen for men.

"How greatly do sex stimuli differ?" They differ
quite as much as different kinds of food appeal to various people. Boys and
men are usually more affected physically than girls and women. But here too
there are notable exceptions. Yet this single fact can be of great importance
for women in dealing with men. Most women have no personal experience that
even resembles the powerful sexual desire of the male and must have faith that
such is really the case. Some people are hypersensitive along sex lines. They
can be strongly excited by something that leaves other people cold. In this
matter, a prudent insight into one's own drives and tendencies is crucial.
It is worth more than any amount of theoretical knowledge that may be found
in books or secured from lectures.

"How does the sex appetite operate?" It works
in the same way as other emotions. Take anger. Someone says a harsh word,
we immediately feel a boiling state inside, and get the urge to strike back
with a harsh word in return. Before we heard the word, we were not angry.
The fact that someone spoke was a stimulus to our feelings. The feelings themselves
were a response to that stimulus. Suddenly from perfect calm our whole body
and mental outlook change. A state of unpleasant tension occurs and we have
a natural impulse to relieve the conflict. In sequence, therefore, we follow
a logical pattern: from stimulus to response to impulse to do something about
it. That is the elementary S-R-I process of every stimulation.

"Does sex follow the same order?' Yes, and behind
this fact lies the basic wisdom of knowing how to use our wills in cooperating
with divine grace to practice Christian chastity. Before we go on to examine
how we are to cope with these sex stimuli, let us be sure we know two things:
Christian chastity is impossible without God's grace, and we have a free will
precisely that we might cooperate with the grace of God. Remove either of these
two elements, grace and free will, and chastity becomes what the whole science
of secular psychology calls it, a pathological repression of perfectly natural
human desires.

Mastery of Sex Stimulation

There are different verbs we could use in the present context.
We could speak of controlling sex stimuli. Or we could say we must cope with
sex stimulation. But I believe the best term is "mastering" our sexual
drives. Behind the word "master" is its Latin origin, magister, which
means teacher.

Certainly we must use our will power to control the strong
sexual drives that are part of our nature. But the will, as I never tire telling
people, is a blind faculty. All the will can do is desire, and then choose
and, if it continues choosing, to love. However, the will must first and constantly
be taught by the mind what should be desired and chosen and loved. The control,
therefore, of our sex impulses depends on our mind enlightening the will on
why and how these impulses are to be coped with.

Immediately we must make a capital distinction between the
divinely ordained purpose of sex stimuli and the human response to this stimulation.
So far in our conferences we have stressed the fact that sexual pleasure is
part of God's mysterious providence. It is intended by Him as one of the great
blessings of married life. Consequently we dare not speak of sex stimuli as
evil. On the contrary, within the sacred precincts of matrimony they are a
cherished blessing of husband and wife.

I do not hesitate saying that failure to recognize the inherent
goodness of sexual pleasure is at the heart of so much psychological and even
physical misery. Sex stimulation is part of God's bounty to married people.
But only to married people. The pleasure they experience is God's way of rewarding
husband and wife for their mutual exchange of selfless love, and of rewarding
fathers and mothers for cooperating with the Creator in His reproduction of
the human race.

Having said this, our concentration will be on mastering
sexual stimulation outside of the sacred relations between husband and wife.

It is a principle of sound philosophy and a truth of the
Christian faith that our wills have mastery of all our faculties, including
the will which has voluntary powers over the will. We will what we want to
will; we think what we want to think; we feel what we want to feel. The secret
in mastering sexual stimulation is to know that we must use our free will as
soon as an emotional stimulation arises. A person may be quietly reading a
book when a passage occurs which is suggestive. The stimulus response serves
the impulse to keep reflecting on the passage or performing some action that
will heighten the emotional state. A basic law of human psychology is that
any pleasurable feeling carries its own inclination to continue unless checked
by some agency outside of itself.

Can we explain further how these impulses are to be checked?
Yes, the secret is to immediately recognize that I am being aroused by whatever
train of thought or imagination is on my mind. The moment I recognize what
is happening, I do something to divert my mind from the stimulating impulse.
This can be anything which is morally good or neutral. It is normally something
pleasant, like an agreeable memory, or turning to some hobby or picking up an
interesting magazine, or just walking around, or starting a conversation with
someone.

The key is to use my will to overcome pleasure with pleasure.
The issue here is overcoming the pleasure of a sinful temptation by having a
pleasant but morally licit experience. Promptness of this kind of action is
recommended by all the masters of the spiritual life. The word is "promptness."
Two seconds may be too long. Use your will to shift the mind's attention from
what the mind recognizes is contrary to the will of God. I do not hesitate
saying that this promptitude of our free will responding to the divine will
is the foundation of Christian morality.

An important question needs to be asked: Do men and women
differ in their reaction to sexual stimulation? They differ immensely. Observing
the opposite sex, for example, tends to be several times more arousing for men
than for women. This is brought out dramatically in Christ's teaching in the
Sermon on the Mount. In context the Savior is comparing the decalogue of the
Old Law with the morality of the New Law. He is telling us that the Mosaic
decalogue forbade adultery. Then He continues, "But I say to you that anyone
who even looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery in his heart"
(Mt 5:28).

The Savior did not imply that women cannot commit adultery
internally by looking at a man lustfully. In fact Pope John Paul has explicitly
declared that Christ's teaching on watching our eyes so as not to sin against
chastity applies both to men and women. This is especially true in our day.
Those who do not accept the norms of Christian morality have become specialists
in exploiting women for the seduction of men.

Men and women also differ in the degree of sexual stimulation.
Among men this stimulation more often brings on erotic fancies, out of all proportion
to similar situations among women. Knowledgeable women writers speak of the
incredible powers of imagination that women can arouse in men by the slightest
suggestive word or body movement on their part.

The media of communication, radio and television, pictures
and the printed word are sources of sexual stimulation for both genders. But
there is a difference. With obvious exceptions, by and large the opening wedge
to erotic response among men is something physically and directly connected
with sex, whatever is seen, heard, read, touched, or thought about. Among women,
however, the more usual beginnings of sex stimulation and therefore of temptation,
are psychological and emotional, romantic and personal. For women, the initial
stimulus may have nothing to do with intercourse except, perhaps, the vague
feeling of being loved, or a sudden mood of depression, or the soft caress of
a friendly hand.

Sex Stimulation and Sanctification

The last thing that most people would associate is sex stimuli
and sanctity. Yet the history of Christianity proves that mastery of the sex
passions is somewhere near the root of becoming holy.

What is holiness? Holiness is Christ-likeness. We are only
as holy as we are like Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was incarnate chastity.
His teaching, therefore, on chastity is the magna carta for our growth in this
indispensable virtue of sanctity.

All the saints honored by the Church were outstanding in
their practice of chastity. All the saints also realized that apart from Christ
there can be no Christian chastity. To understand this is to see two things:
that the mastery of our sexual impulses is impossible without the grace that
only Christ can provide; that with the grace that comes from Christ, the sexual
drives in our nature can become the means of reaching the heights of sanctity.

Need of Grace. Without the grace of God there is no way
that we can cope with our fallen human nature and control the sexual stimulation
to which we are all naturally prone. This is the fundamental law of Christian
morality. The Savior told us, "Without me you can do nothing." This
means that without the grace that only He can provide, there is no way that
we can control our sexual impulses.

Where does this indispensable grace come from? It comes
from Christ. True. But we must constantly beg for this grace. The stronger
our sexual drives and the more we are exposed to the sexually saturated atmosphere
of our day, the more we must pray. The formula is very simple: No prayer, no
grace; no grace, no chastity. St. Philip Neri gave us a simple imperative:
If you wish to be chaste, be diligent in prayer.

We seldom make the connection, but it is true. Sexual arousal,
occasioned by sex stimuli, is part of the providence of God. He knows how desperately
we need the light and strength that only His grace can give us. By supernatural
instinct, we might say, we are driven to prayer in order to master our venereal
drives according to the Divine Will.

Need of Humility. If the first condition for sanctity is
the practice of prayer, the first law of sanctity if the practice of humility.

We should have no illusions about the weakness of our nature
to live in conformity with Christ's teaching on chastity. Notice what we are
saying. We should have no illusions. And we will have no illusions once we
realize how helpless we are when left to our own fallen humanity.

Once again this is part of God's marvelous providence.
He protects us from pride by keeping us constantly aware of our native incapacity
to master our sex stimuli.

Growth in Chastity. There is one more aspect of sex stimulation
that deserves to be seen. We have been speaking about the mastery of our sex
impulses, through the control of the sex stimuli that are so notoriously a part
of modern life. But there is more to Christian chastity than just self- control.
Christian chastity is a virtue in which we should grow. There is such a thing
as becoming more chaste, and thus becoming more holy.

What are we saying? We are saying that chastity does indeed
require mastery of our bodily urges. We are also saying that chastity requires
mastery of our thoughts and desires. In fact, that is precisely what Christian
chastity is all about. It is the interior command of our reproductive faculties
according to the will of God. Another name for this is the virtue of continence.

Height of Chastity. All that we know from reason and revelation
tells us that unchastity is essentially a failure in charity. Take any sin
against chastity and what do you find? You find the practice of selfishness
at the expense of selfless love.

How, then, do we grow in chastity? We grow in chastity
by growing in charity. This applies to marital chastity where husband and wife
experience sexual pleasure as mutual exchange of their selfless love. It applies
to marital chastity where father and mother, again with selfless love, welcome
the children that God wants to give them.

The unmarried grow in chastity as they grow in charity by
their surrender of sexual pleasure as a sacrifice to the God whom they love.

We may therefore conclude with a maxim of the spiritual
life. Without charity, there is no chastity; as we grow in charity, we grow
in chastity; we attain sanctity by the practice of chaste and selfless charity.